This Thing We Call Failure

When Peter walked toward Jesus on the water and then panicked and started to drown and shouted out “Lord, save me”, Jesus did more than save him from drowning. Due to Peter’s lack of faith, Jesus could have told him that he had lost his chance to walk on water and had to swim back to the boat. Or Jesus could have carried or dragged Him back to the boat. He did none of these things. Peter was probably feeling all sorts of shame and guilt and embarrassment that he had wavered and fallen, but Jesus was not about to let any of those feelings get in the way of Peter immediately getting back to walking with faith upon the water. There’s no arbitrary time limit to when we can start walking in faith with the Lord once more after we’ve fallen and immersed ourselves in doubt and fear and sin. Christ wants us to pick ourselves up and follow Him immediately. “This thing we call failure is not the falling down, but the staying down” (Mary Pickford). Christ knows we’re going to fall down. A lot. But He wants to make sure that we don’t stay down, but get right back up and keep walking the path of faith, even if we’ve got to walk on water.